The applicant of the present application has proposed a technology disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,311,867 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-118137 in order to dispense stacked flat articles having cards therein respectively, without causing any damage thereon.
This technology is such that, after the top flat article of stacked flat articles is suctioned by a suction device, the flat article is conveyed by a conveyance device which is in contact with the flat article by suction. This apparatus sends the held or suctioned top flat article by means of the conveyance device. The apparatus can, for example dispense a CD case, which has a CD therein and wrapped with a thin film, without damaging the CD case. However, in the embodiments disclosed in above patent specifications, since there is only a suction port of a fan, which is the suction device, when dispensing relatively heavy flat article such as a CD cases, the CD case which is suctioned by the suction port is moved in a lateral direction by the conveyance device, thus a part of the suction port is hidden by the flat particle.
Accordingly, the amount of air suctioned from an uncovered part of the opening increases at once, and the suction force to the flat article decreases drastically, whereby the flat article falls off the suction device, thus the flat article may not be transferred to the conveyance device in the next cycle. Moreover, when the flat article is transferred to the conveyance device in the next cycle, only a leading end portion of the flat article is held by the conveyance device, and other portions fall off the suction port, thus the wrapping film may be damaged by scraping against a peripheral wall.
Further, reinforcement of the suction device can be considered so that a flat article does not fall off the suction device. However, such causes an increase in the size of the apparatus and the consumption energy, thus this technology cannot be employed readily.
Furthermore, even when the conveyance device receives only a part of the flat article in the next cycle, the conveyance device may be able to convey without causing the flat article to incline, but this causes an increase in the size of the apparatus and the cost, and thus cannot be employed readily.